The Great Mystery: Death, Memory and the Archiving of Monastic Culture in Late Antique Religious Tales

Abstract

The present study investigates attitudes towards and teachings about the end of life and the soul’s passage to the next world, as expressed in late antique religious tales in Greek, particularly from Egypt and the Sinai. The intellectual setting is that of Chalcedonian Christianity, but within those strictures there was scope for a range of creative treatments and imaginings of a topic which canonical Scripture touched upon in mostly vague terms or glancing allusions. While there was much speculation and discussion in what we may call formal theology, the use of arresting narrative, some of it with an almost dramatic character, gave exponents of doctrine the ability to reach a wider audience in a more penetrating and persuasive way. And, as the number of scriptural allusions here will make clear, it was possible to develop ideas and images within the large gaps left by Holy Writ which were nevertheless not inconsonant with the same. Coupled with the relative freedom allowed for presentations of a universal (death) was an urgency to do so which was particular to the time (one of sweeping social and political changes within, and threats to, the empire). We consider here the connection between the universal and the particular, and some of the most important approaches taken to the subject. This work builds upon that of a number of scholars, including Derek Krueger, John Wortley, Phil Booth, André Binggeli, Elizabeth Castelli and Aron Gurevich. The first and last chapters of the dissertation are given to thematic treatment of the moments immediately before and immediately after death. The second, third and fourth chapters are each dedicated to one of the three most influential ascetic writers of the period: John Klimakos, John Moschos, and Anastasios of Sinai. We look at how their presentations of death not only frame the ideals of monastic life but to record for posterity the fading ways of a changing world.